Every Mother's Son
by a thousand winds
Summary: [Robin Hood BBC] Come, now! What devil could have spawned you? It depends on who you ask. [gen]


"Did you ever have a mother? Come, now! What devil could have spawned you?"

* * *

Guy remembered his mother, sometimes. A dowerless younger daughter, widowed young by a hapless, landless knight who went on a pilgrimage. Not for himself. In the train of a Saxon earl, descendant of Christ the Lord and Mary Magdalene to hear his retainers tell it.

He remembered. He remembered how his mother cowered beneath insults, as if she weren't a lady of gentle birth. Her father had been sheriff, but she'd been disgraced and he wouldn't have her under his roof. A stronger woman would have challenged him with the shame of a daughter heavy with child a year after her husband's death and forced him to take her back.

She died when he was eight and his grandfather the sheriff took him in, gave him an education. But Guy remembered. He thought of his own sons _in potentia_ and knew he'd have to find them a stronger mother than he'd had.

* * *

Robin supposed he had had a mother. He sometimes recalled a strange, cool woman who had nodded at him as he toddled past her through the halls of Locksley Manor. He supposed that must be her.

Whoever she was, she died when he was four and he was rocked in his nurse's arms as she sobbed. His nurse had been a bright, bouncy peasant girl, who kisses everyone she met and laughed a lot.

She'd died while he was in Acre. A fever, they said. Only a few months before you returned, Master, how sad. Much said, to the day that the assassin stabbed you, Master. They exchanged glances, but Robin put it out of his mind. He was not a superstitious man.

Besides, people had always made sacrifices for him.

* * *

Much shared Robin's mother (or what he had of her) and Robin's nurse (a bit more of her) like he shared everything in Robin's life. And if that meant he got a little less altogether, well, it was more than most people got at all.

* * *

Allan's family, now. Allan's family.

His father was a travelling pedlar and he taught Allan how to pick pockets – or sleight of hand, as he put it in his la-di-da way. Allan was better than him, but Tom was shite and stayed shite for years, until Allan made a point of teaching him. Even then, he couldn't quite grasp that you went for the _valuable_ things, not just any old stuff.

Allan's mother –

She taught Allan the important articles of life, like how to lie without the flicker of an eyelid, how to make promises and break them in the same breath, how to be open and reticent all at once. She taught Allan everything he knew without ever lifting a finger or speaking an instructive word. They all knew where she was on Saturday nights before Sunday confession and penance. It didn't matter. All it meant was that Allan – who had blue eyes like no one else in the family – knew how to lie.

Or did it? How do you know any of this is true?

Ask Allan, if you don't believe me. I'm not being funny, but –

* * *

Djaq had loved Mother. Mother had moved with the sharp scent of oranges that stung through one's nose and tingled on one's tongue. Djaq had sat at her feet for hours at a time, listening to her sing as she embroidered their new clothes. Mother had had a thousand and one stories that she told Djaq every night, her hand stroking Djaq's hair.

Djaq had sometimes been scolded by Father for spending too much time with Mother, because he wanted to teach Djaq things, too, about the pulse of the heart and how to set broken bones. But Djaq had loved Mother best – and she had loved Djaq best of all of them, too, even better than Father. It was for Djaq she had screamed when they dragged her away. But Djaq had at least had that, if nothing else.

Sofia, on the other hand, had sometimes felt left out in the cold.

* * *

Will hadn't seen his mother die. He'd been in the forest, killing the King's deer so that she might have meat in their stew. It was winter; the salted pork was nearly gone and their small money pouch dwindling with it. If she hadn't had the fever, she'd've starved first.

He hadn't watched her die, and for weeks afterward Luke threw it at him when they fought. Luke always ended those arguments screaming and sobbing into Will's chest like an eleven year-old boy should, and Will had only hugged him and not said a word. Their father never knew.

And then there were three, and one too small to do anything useful. Luke earned the least and ate the most, but Will kept his mouth shut when they fought, because he was the elder. Instead, he did what he could to get a little on the side. He did what he could. What that was –

He visited her grave after he did it, every time. But she would have forgiven him. She was like that.

He wasn't.

* * *

John had been a big baby, his mother had told him. Biggest anyone in Locksley had ever seen. She'd looked at him then and known her boy was going to be a great man.

So beautiful, she'd told him. I wanted to hug you to me and never let you go.

His father had been a dour man, a huge blacksmith with dark, bushy eyebrows and a lined forehead. But his mother had always been able to coax a smile from him, a tiny, fair woman who looked almost ridiculous at his side. John had been their pride and joy.

After his father died, John took over the smithy. He married Alice and they settled down a little way outside Locksley, where they might have some peace and quiet. That was why he didn't hear his mother screaming for help, at first. When he did...

He tried to rescue her, but they hanged her for a witch anyway. He fought his way out of Nottingham, berserk with rage and pain and anguish; all his fault, all his fault. He killed ten men, but he didn't remember anything about them.

It was the forest, after that, without Alice, without the smithy, without everything that had made life worth it, no matter what the taxes were like. John wasn't a great man, wasn't even a good man, so he stayed because it was all he deserved.

It was her motherless state that accounted for Marian's oddity. A dutiful daughter, of course, but no mother to give her a softer side, to gently turn her thoughts to marriage and children. A sweet girl, but –

* * *

Marian turned her thoughts away from marriage. If it came, it came; there was nothing she could do about it. Instead, she hemmed a cloak and embroidered a mask and sharpened a knife and went to her father's side. He was a good man but an ineffectual schemer and her love for him went too deep to leave him floundering alone.

In lieu of a son, he had sat with her and confided in her his private fears, his innermost nightmares. Marian had listened. She had understood what he meant to do, if he ever could manage it while protecting her. Marian made sure that when the day came, she would not need protection.

She would hem a cloak and embroider a mask and sharpen a knife and wait. Even if it killed her.

* * *

The Sheriff, on the other hand, never had a mother. No, God's own truth. He oozed out of the primordial slime and into Nottingham Castle. He slithered into the Sheriff's ermine like he'd been doing it all his life. Which, as a point of fact, he had.

No, really. True as I stand here. Why don't you believe me? I'd rather spit on my own mother's grave than lie to you, you're my best mate and I bloody love you...


End file.
